2.06.2009

Selbu Modern

Truth be told.. I have a hat phobia. I love hats on others, but on me. Well. I just feel so silly. I want to get better. I want to get over this. There are too many beautiful hat patterns out there, and too many cold drizzly days where hat wearing would be in order. So I'm starting here.

This hat was so fun to make. I haven't done stranded colorwork in a really long time, so it was fun to get reacquainted. I was oh so scared that with changing colors my tension would be all over the place, but it wasn't. It was fine. I just followed some really good colorwork tips that I've heard in the past, and that is what I credit to my success.

Helpful Tip #1: I put one one color in my left hand and the other color in my right. I never switched hands. The left hand always held the gold, and the right always held the brown.

When using this method, I knit all of the gold stitches in the continental knitting style and all of the brown stitches in the English style. I am a continental knitter usually so this took a little getting used to.

Helpful Tip#2: Slightly spread out your stitches that you have just knit on the right hand needle before adding another color. This helps the tension not be too tight, which can be a big issue with stranded knitting.

Helpful Tip #3: Keep one ball of yarn on your left side and the other ball on your right. If they are together in your lap there is much more chance of annoying tangledge and twisting of your strands. Not a good thing.

For this pattern I used 1 ball of Jameson's Shetland Spindrift in Grouse and 2 balls of Scotch Broom. I almost got the entire hat out of only 2 balls, but on the last few rounds I had to break into that second ball of Scotch Broom. Dang. I hate that.

I also went up one needle size than the pattern recommended, and I am really happy with the ending hat size.

I am all around very happy with how the Selbu Modern turned out and who knows.. Maybe I'll become a hat girl after all?

27 comments:

After your last post, I went to the Dancing Ewe website and ordered enough of the Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift to make my own hat and it arrived today. I didn't realize when ordering Scotch Broom that it was a color you were using, but that makes me even more excited to get started after seeing the vibrant yet warm color in your pictures today.

It looks great on you. By the way, as to keeping each color always in the same hands, I totally agree with you, but would like to add that if you carry the contrast color (in this case, brown) in your left hand, you would really see the pattern "pop" more. Eunny Jang's old blog has an extensive couple of posts on it, and it really does work out beautifully. A tip for your next project!

Forgive me for commenting on a very old post but, as I mentioned on Ravelry, I just "discovered" you (and your podcast, by the way!). Your projects are LOVELY. It was this fantastic hat that first draw me to your project page. Great job. I'm looking forward to keeping up on your blog regularly. :) Leslie